Number of casuals surging

If the NTEU is fair dinkum about decasualisation it should not only be prepared to insist on conversion clauses (a la USyd) as mandatory settlement conditions for Enterprise Agreements, but be prepared to enforce them. Too often in the past EAs have included such clauses but universities have simply ignored them. That’s why casualisation increases inexorably. As a result, many casuals just look upon the NTEU as a bosses’ union, made up of members who themselves use casualisation (eg through using resesarch money to buy out their teaching at casual rates) as a way to prevent their own conditions being eroded. Time to privilege the needs to the poorest and least powerful in the academic workforce Jeannie Rae. And if you think that increasing funding per student is going to change things, you’re deluded. Many universities have plenty of financial capacity to decasualise their workforces but will not do so unless they are forced to do so by industrial pressure.

I couldn’t agree more with everything pointed out above! The same applies to General Staff members and their efforts to provide efficient and timely administrative service to academic staff and students.